McCain Declares He’s Running For President But Is His Campaign Collapsing? (UPDATED)

So now the big non-drama is finally over: Arizona Senator John McCain has declared his candidacy for Presidency on David Letterman.

But if you look at recent polls, it seems that many voters would have thought his announcement would have been more suitable on Trading Places.

In six years McCain has gone from being perceived as a fiercely-independent Senator with lion-like political bravery to someone accused of flip-flopping and displaying such predictable loyalty to the Bush administration that he is now considered the GOP establishment candidate.

It’s always a bit problematicto quote former Clinton political guru and present Clinton political nemesis Dick Morris. Sometimes he seems to be to accurate political prognostication what “you’re doing a heck of a job” is to doing a heck of a job. But in his latest piece on Townhall.Com he raises some points that have been noted in many political quarters, left, center and right:

The John McCain candidacy, launched amid much hope, fanfare, and high expectations, may be dying before our eyes.

Even worse, it may go out with a whimper instead of a bang.

It may not end in an Armageddon style primary defeat, but just dry up from lack of support, money, or interest.

His analysis gets even more interesting here:

Part of McCain’s problem was that he wasn’t raising money. But the other part has been that he is spending money too rapidly â€” and not on reaching voters but on paying political consultants. One top Republican operative from the old Reagan campaign commented, “McCain has hired every consultant he can find. He has all the top names, but no money.”

Morris nails part of McCain’s ongoing problem. McCain has been seemingly forever traumatized by 2000, when he was the media darling, the darling of young people at universities, the darling of centrist Democrats, the darling of independent voters.

He had one problem, though: he wasn’t the darling of the political base. And what happened next? George W. Bush and key portions of the Republican coalition stopped him cold — a man who could have won the election but could not get nominated.

What has happened since 2000 is a classic case of ruining a valuable “brand” name.

McCain’s stunning political descent is all the more shocking because as a politician he “wears well,” in media terms — not a small attribute in 21st century America.

But these days McCain resembles the Coca Cola Company’s ill-fated idea one year: why not dump the decades-popular old Coke and offer the world The New Coke. Coca Cola did and the world quickly spit it out. Morris notes:

Fundamentally, he failed to heed the Shakespeare’s admonition “to thine own self be true.” The John McCain of the 2000 campaign is nowhere in evidence in 2007.

Instead of challenging the party establishment, he pathetically waits at its door, hoping to be invited. Where he used to challenge the religious right, he now panders to them. Once he led the battle against big tobacco, for corporate governance reform, in favor of campaign financing changes, and in support of action against global warming.

Now he has been identified with two issues, neither popular in the Republican Party: The Iraqi troop surge and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Rather than stake out an independent voice apart from the Bush administration, he has become the last survivor at Custer’s Last Stand in its support of its policies.

As Morris and Republican strategist Ed Rollins note in Morris’s column, McCain is now the voice of the Republican establishment. It’s ironic since he doesn’t agree with the administration on all issues — but on the big ones, he’s usually there.

But his problems go deeper than that.

He has morphed into the voice of the Bush faction GOP estabishment. GOPers who are unhappy on the far right or the Republican center can’t be too keen about backing McCain because he’s either offering a) more of the same sincerely or b) going through the motions of offering more of the same but hoping people think he doesn’t mean it.

But if he does hope some people think he doesn’t mean it, the wrong constituents may be getting that impression as well. Morris again:

He looks small, shrunken, weak, cowed, and timid. He shows all of his 70 years of age including the roughly lived period at the hands of the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese. It is hard to imagine him as a strong leader as he meekly answers questions from the likes of Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulos.

[The]other problem can be summed up in one word: Rudy.

Not everyone would agree that McCain looks spent. He looks vigorous enough physically, and he certainly doesn’t seem timid.

He just looks like someone who’s still battered by going from being The Man Who Was Going To Take The Country By Storm in 2000 — only to be shot down by members of his own party — to someone who is trying to make sure that his old foes don’t shoot him down again. He’s trying to win friends and influence people, get them over to his side and take their ammunition away.

But he’s not winning over enough numbers of the old foes and he’s losing the people who admired his independence from traditional political talking points, his unpredictability, his penchant in 2000 to talk like a real human being instead of like one more Democratic or Republican pol mouthing words aimed at political positioning.

No, the old McCain has not totally vanished and he doesn’t look like he’s 120 years old.

What’s changed is that a year ago John McCain was walking a political tightrope.

And now it seems as if he has fallen off.

UPDATE: And THIS won’t endear him to conservatives who already distrust him.

I have to agree with Morris as well as you, Joe. Which is fairly amazing to me since a a year and-a-half ago I was convinced the presidency was his for the taking – and I’m not a supporter.

I had been – I was one of those “centrists” who would normally vote Democrat but saw enough in McCain 2000 to possibly vote for him.

It took a conversation with 3 centrist Republicans in a D.C. hotel bar to make me realize how much he was disliked by his own party in ’05. I can understand why, too. I wouldn’t vote for him under any circumstances this cycle – just like those three Republicans.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Award-Winning Historian and Kennedy Insider, Dies at 89
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and former special White House assistant to President Kennedy who was an influential liberal voice in American politics for decades, died Wednesday. He was 89.

The Myth of the Middle
……….
When we combined voters’ answers to the 14 issue questions to form a liberal-conservative scale (answers were divided into five equivalent categories based on overall liberalism vs. conservatism), 86 percent of Democratic voters were on the liberal side of the scale while 80 percent of Republican voters were on the conservative side. Only 10 percent of all voters were in the center. The visual representation of the nation’s voters isn’t a nicely shaped bell, with most voters in the moderate middle. It’s a sharp V.

Marlowecan

“McCain has been seemingly forever traumatized by 2000…”

McCain learned a critical lesson from 2000: The GOP establishment has historically been the deciding factor in determining the candidate. Look at Dole in 96…and the establishment certainly kicked in and paid dividends to Bush just after McCain early victories in 2000.

The Bush faction is perhaps not as isolated in the party as Morris would suggest. After all, Bush pere is deeply immersed in the traditional establishment of the party. Diss W and you piss off Papa.

So McCain distances himself by criticizing Rumsfeld, but not the president.

As for money, how much has Guiliani -the most likely contender – raised? How organized is Guiliani?

The answer to both is: not much.

kritter

I think its a welcome sign of the health of our democracy. Where just a few months ago, I was resigned to the inevitability of a McCain/ Clinton match, its nice to see more unconventional candidates like Obama and Giuli getting some play. They may not win the nomination, but its nice to see that Americans want some fresh blood. McCain’s problem is that by positioning himself as the natural successor to George Bush, he took on a lot of Bush’s considerable liabilities in public opinion.

At the same time, the GOP establishment questioned the many moves to the right he has made on social issues. The “maverick” quality that made him attractive to Independents and Democrats was sacrificed by visits to Jerry Falwell, and his change of heart on Roe v. Wade. He is now seen by them as someone who would say anything to be elected, and who is, therefore, untrustworthy.

Giuliani has his own problems, but he has a clearer personna-he is who he is and isn’t trying to morph into a James Dobson clone.

Anna

This comment is to (hopefully) turn off the italics…too much is tough on the eyes.

Susan Abato

I have taken some time to decide who I want to support and much depends on the McCain staff. Having worked with Steve Schmidt in the CA campaign and been on receiving end of hundreds of interns sent to CA who do not know CA politics, it is suprising the Governor did so well. I have a message for John McCain. California is not your cash cow and be careful who you pick to run different states. We in CA choose to have our own people rund the organizations because we know the CA voter.